Memes

51905 readers

388 users here now

Rules:

Be civil and nice.
Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.

founded 6 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

1276

Floppy disks were high-tech weapons once (files.mastodon.social)

submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

112 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 90 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (16 children)

The US nuclear arsenal still runs on floppy disks.

EDIT: The Air Force claimed they finished a migration from 8-inch floppy disks to solid state storage in June 2019, so my info is slightly out of date. They did use floppy disks for over 50 years though (1968-2019).

[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 years ago (15 children)

The thing with random internet replies: you never know if it's true (you could look it up, but that would make life to easy).

So this is or:

really scary
unbelievable smart cause nobody knows how to use them
not true

Probably there are some other options but I'll go for a combination of the first and second one and hoping for the third

[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 years ago (7 children)

Doing a bit of research online, my info is slightly out of date. They used floppy disks from 1968 to 2019. In 2019, they migrated from the old 8 inch floppy to "highly secure solid-state storage". They don't specify what type of solid state storage they actually use now though.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/24/us/nuclear-weapons-floppy-disks.html

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 years ago (1 children)

3.5" is much more solid than 8" floppies.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

Fair point

load more comments (5 replies)

load more comments (12 replies)